


not-quite-mended ;

by therentyoupay



Category: Frozen (2013), Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: Crossover, F/M, Fever, Frozen Fever, Hurt/Comfort, Jackson Overland - Freeform, Servant!Jack, canon!verse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-19
Updated: 2015-03-19
Packaged: 2018-03-18 13:52:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,352
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3572051
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/therentyoupay/pseuds/therentyoupay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Jackson Overland is just trying to do his job.</p>
            </blockquote>





	not-quite-mended ;

**Author's Note:**

> _3/18/15_. I have been receiving some KILLER PROMPTS from the [Fanfic Writers' Palette Challenge](http://therentyoupay.tumblr.com/post/113716788362/resident-longwinded-anon-its-fairly), and I'm super pumped to attack another couple of them over the next few days, but this fic actually came from a completely unrelated tumblr anon... which I accidentally deleted. :( I'm sorry, anonny!
> 
> I think the hope attached to the tumblr-ask was that I might write a pre-established relationship between Jack and Elsa in the context of _Frozen Fever_ , but I was feeling really strongly about this, so I hope this interpretation is okay!
> 
> Unbeta'd, because this is just for fun. ;)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

* * *

  **not-quite-mended ;**

* * *

 

Kristoff is talking to the reindeer again.

The second that the Queen leaves, he turns to—Sven?—and, in large and exaggerated tones, drawls, “She thinks you’re an idiot.”

Jack pointedly and purposefully does not avert his eyes from the ribbon he is tying to a chair.

(The  _real_  Jack, the one he left behind in the village when he signed up for this job in the castle in the first place, would have made a sly comment—would have at least pointed out that the guy was talking to a  _reindeer_ —)

This Jack, however, (the one who has promised to be good and do his duties at the castle without any “trouble”), says nothing. He ties another ribbon to another chair, and stares at his hands.

The other servants are more bright and cheerful than ever, and keep talking about the gates and  _bugles_  and a whole bunch other things that Jack doesn’t really understand. They’re all bustling about the castle, chattering and laughing, and normally he would have already joined them, but today—today is a little different.

Jack’s thoughts are torn apart by a hurdling stampede of small children come whipping through the courtyard, who tug at his vest as they pass. With a bark of laughter he waves after them, then watches in familiar, fond amusement—watches with a slight, familiar pang—as they are shooed out of the central courtyard and off to the steps beyond. They’re practicing their choral singing for their Princess.

To be honest, he’s really not quite sure what all the fuss is about. Painted banners? Three-tiered cakes? (Until this morning, he hadn’t even known what a “tier” was.) Back home there aren’t anything like birthdays or birthday parties; you acknowledged your season with a hot meal and a few dances in the square, and that was that. And nobody ever spent a whole day slacking off just because of it.

To be  _honest,_  Jack thinks that he should really be appreciating this custom a lot more than he actually feels at the moment. (The old Jack would have, he knows.)

Jack then hears a familiar trail of laughter floating on the wind, like bells and soft things and whole bunch of other poetic stuff he doesn’t really know anything about, and bites his tongue as he furiously reties a giant blue ribbon for the second time, just because.

(Everybody knew that a lot of crazy things happened in Arendelle: talking snowmen, magical trolls, ice-sorceress Snow Queens who could freeze and unfreeze an entire kingdom by the sheer magnitude of her  _emotions_ … It’s a place for some pretty extraordinary things. Including birthday parties. And allowing a young shepherd from a foreign land to come take up a post in the inner-walls of the castle. Just.

You know. Probably not crazy enough for a Queen to look at him twice.)

* * *

A lot of the other servants all have specific positions and roles to be completed throughout the day, like unknotting the red string when it gets tangled or collecting Princess Anna’s gifts along the way to ensure that they find their way back into her chambers. (It’d taken Jack approximately two days to realize how easily her highness lost items around the castle, but that’s another story. An embarrassing one. A story that details how he’d first met the Queen, and the impression he’d left, which will probably stick with him for the rest of his life. Day one, and his attempts to  _not cause any trouble had already irrevocably failed_. But anyway.)

Jack only has one job.

Well. Aside from the usual stuff, and the extra bits—like preparing the ribbons and bows and other decoration stuff with Queen Elsa’s ladies-in-waiting and Kristoff and some of the other servants. (Who’d nominated  _him_  for decoration duty was anybody’s guess, but his curiosity had only been answered with awkward insinuations and honestly, how on earth is he supposed to respond to  _hey, you know, you’re pretty good with your hands?_ ) But the truth is that Jack had also only really done any of the stuff to keep busy—to  _look_  busy—because everyone else was busy, anyway. It’d have been more fun if he could have turned it into a game of some sort, but everyone is distracted and—

Right. His job.

So he’s standing outside the cart for Oaken’s Sauna and Trading Post and  _why_  does this guy even have a mobile cart anyway for crying out loud? Anyway. The point is, Jack has been standing here for at least a half hour, waiting dutifully by the cart that smells like too much steam and salt and Oaken, because her Majesty had insisted on this particular window of time according to her painstakingly-crafted timeline, and her Majesty is very much late.

(Or is it that everyone else is just early? Jack can’t remember the actual etiquette—surprise—but he will tell anyone that walks by, right now, that standing in the same spot next to a smelly Oaken for almost half an hour is  _not_  early—)

He wonders what could be taking them so long.

Just as he thinks it, the royal pair round a corner on unsteady cobblestone tracks. Jack’s annoyance shifts from confusion to alarm as the royal sisters draw steadily nearer, and it’s obvious that something is not quite… right.

“ _Elsa_ ,” Anna is pleading, and even as they are almost upon him, it’s not really clear who is dragging  _who_. “I’m telling you, you’ve got a—“

“I’m  _fine_ , Anna,” is what Elsa insists, right before she stumbles; Jack only realizes that he has reached out for her, needlessly, when his hands linger in the air between them. Anna gives him a grateful smile, even as his cheeks begin to flush, but Elsa is not looking anywhere but at her sister.

“Elsa, this has been  _wonderful_ , but I think it’s time we head back to—“

The wave of nausea that overcomes Jack at the wafting smell of steamed-Oaken is enough to merit the grimace of all grimaces. (The royal sisters’ politeness are renowned far and wide, however, and it only takes a mere two minutes of meeting either of them to see why.) So. Jack takes a shallow breath, and bears it.

He distracts himself by watching the alarming way the Queen is wobbling on her feet, which Jack suspects has actually nothing to do with the cobblestone. Feeling his chest grow tight with unexpected consideration, he takes a closer look at the Queen of Arendelle, as surreptitiously as he can, only to find a faint wash of color over her cheeks, and a half-lidded look to her eyes, and—?

“We’ll take it,” Anna says with great cheer, then bounces off after her sister, who is already pulling away. Jack blinks, feels insupportably uneasy about the absurd intensity of his concern, and wonders what he just missed.

“What did you give them?” he asks curiously, just before the door closes shut once more. Oaken looks surprised, but delighted to share his answer.

“ _Oh_ ,” he says, in a way that set Jack’s hairs on end, though he can’t fathom why. “Just a little something to perk up even the peskiest of colds.”

Jack has no idea what the hell he’s talking about. Cold? Are they referring to about the same Queen? Really?

But since he can’t stand the stench any longer, he shrugs and leaves. The only thing left to do for the day is to enjoy the party, write home, and spend a little extra time with the others to make up for how moody he’s been. (Honestly, he doesn’t even recognize himself anymore.)

He catches sight of a long, shimmering train dragging out of sight while on his way back, and he ignores the subsequent butterflies in his stomach until they resemble something closer to rocks.

Jack then bears witness to a small, moss-covered troll rolling blissfully down towards the main gate, and decides that he has given up on trying to predict just about anything in Arendelle.

He thinks he’s finally earned a little right to party.

* * *

With the homesickness at bay and the children done with their chores, Jack can finally relax. Feeling more like himself again, Jack can forget all about her royal Majesty and her strange behavior and the new dress she’s wearing and—right. Anyway.

They’re all waiting around the entrance to the courtyard—shouldn’t have Kristoff given the signal by now??—and with everyone finally free to admire his antics, he finds himself an audience in no time.

Until.

Until Kristoff rushes them all inside the courtyard for the big finale, and  _oh_ , heaven help them, the snowman has spawned?

Jack watches as the tiny, snow-made creatures converge into reckless bouts of barely-controlled chaos, and considers the celebrations “mightily improved.”

So he’s having a genuinely good time, then, when the doors open and the royal sisters see the utter mess of a success Kristoff and Olaf have concocted in their absence. His cheeks hurt from smiling and his throat is raw from laughing (and something else that burns his throat when he drinks it, but enough of that), and his hands only pause their clapping, briefly, when he sees the look of simple shock and unreadable emotion on her Majesty’s face.

He looks at her face for a long, long time, and hopes no one notices.

* * *

After what has been one of the longest days in Jack’s limited experience with Arendelle, he is actually glad for once to retire for bed.

In the spirit of merriment, Jack has only pulled one prank on the groundskeeper—okay, three, but  _only_ three—and he is in particularly high spirits when he is doing one last walk down to the kitchens to swipe some bread and Princess Anna herself runs into him.

“Ohh, I’m sorry! I’m so sorry, did I get you? I didn’t stab you, did I?”

“Uhh… with what?” Jack hesitates, perplexed, as if this is something that he needs to make  _sure_  of, then hastily remembers, “Um. Your highness.”

“Oh, no, don’t be silly—oh good. Looks like I didn’t gut you with my spoon after all!”

“Ah. No?”

“Here, could you do me a _huge_  favor?” she asks, and that’s it—this is when he should have seen it coming. “Your name is Jackson, right?”

“Just… Jack,” he slowly corrects, trying to remember if he’s allowed to do that. He has spoken with Princess Anna exactly twice.

“Oh, that’s right! Jack. Hi, Jack—look, I’m really sorry to ask you this, but I’m sort of in a bind. I’ve been trying to find time to talk to Kristoff all day, but I’ve been so busy with the celebrations and the, you know, the overwhelming nature of how much everything has  _changed_ , and I just really need to talk to Kristoff right now without having to worry about everything because if I don’t confront him about him telling me that he loves me soon—and I mean _soon_ —even if it's not—oh, but wait—do you think that's too much pressure? Am I putting to much thought into this? I'm beginning to sound like Elsa. The point is that if I don't see Kristoff soon I think I’m literally going to  _combust_.”

“Um,” Jack says, actually a little afraid. “Okay.”

“Okay, _great_ , thank you so much—! Oh my _goodness_. This really means a lot to me, you have _no_ idea how badly I need this, but I don’t want to leave the room, you know, for too long, or make her think—“

“I’m sorry, your highness?”

“Yes?”

“What exactly is it that I’m doing?”

* * *

Jack knocks.

It’s more for a show of courtesy than anything else, because her Majesty obviously cannot come to the door and  _why_  is he doing this again? (Did he knock too quietly? Too loudly? What if she didn’t hear and awakes to find a random male attendant in her chambers? Do they carry out executions in Arendelle, because apparently this Hans guy scraped by, but Jack doesn't think he’d be so lucky, and—)

He takes a deep breath, and turns the handle.

The Princess is endearing, in her own quirky little way, but if she ever again dismisses the entire staff of ladies-in-waiting on the grounds of “she’s my sister and I love her and it’s my royal birthday so let me take care of her, by the way did I mention I’m a Princess and it’s my birthday?” then she’s on her own, for good.

With quiet, careful steps honed from  _years_  of sneaking through pastures and thickened woodlands, Jack slowly manages his way over to the—oh dear god—bedside table of her Majesty’s bed, where the Queen herself is fast asleep and—oh  _hell_ , he’s going to be executed—but yes, there on the table, is an empty spot. His job is to place the tray—the tea cups, the tea pot, the tea—into that spot. Yes. Very easy. Almost there.

Jack doggedly points his gaze toward his single destination and  _not_  at the Queen lying four feet to his right, all the while trying to remember to breathe. He distracts himself with annoyances over not having gone to bed sooner—and why had he not? Because he was having  _fun_ , he’d said. Because the morning would only bring more work and homesickness and pining, and also— _why_  Anna thinks it’s a good idea to serve hot tea to a sleeping sister is beyond him, but it’s not really his place to—

“Anna?”

Oh, hell.

“Yes?” he coughs, before he stutters, “I mean—“ And nearly drops the tray. The tea pot clatters loudly and spills, just the tiniest bit, as a panicked Jack stares into the Queen’s wide eyes. He thinks something in the room may have frozen. “Um. Sorry,” he spits out, unable to check. “Your sister… is. Um. She asked me.”

Shit.

“You are…?” Elsa begins, but a wheezing breath stalls the rest of her interrogation. (Question. He means  _question_.) The panic is not subsiding, and none of the other words are forthcoming, and it’s all very distracting—the room and the bed and the Queen who lies within it, and it’s only by pure miracle that Jack swallows his paranoia and finds his voice.

“Your sister asked me to bring you the tea she made,” he tries again, and this time he sounds a little more like himself… a very stiff version of himself. Dammit. “I tried to get your other servants to do it—your ladies, or whoever, but Anna—I mean, her royal highness—gave them all the rest of the night off, and she had to—like, talk to Kristoff about love or something, I’m not really sure—“

“That’s enough,” Elsa sniffled, weakly holding out a hand to halt him. Jack’s whole throat seizes up. “Thank you for… the tea. I would appreciate it if—“

And what the hell just happened, she _sneezed_ and out popped two tiny snow monsters, what  _even_?

Jack looks to the Queen, alarmed, as the creatures bob and weave down the raised impressions of her—oh god—legs beneath the blankets, and then skitter off toward the hallway, letting the door shut with a click.

Elsa’s only response is a sigh: long… and shuddering.

 _Oh my god_ , he thinks. She’s so…  _sick_.

“I’m sorry,” he blurts out, though he’s not quite sure what for. That she’s obviously ill and further, is so unused to it? That she has to rely on strangers like him to bring her healing tea?

That he’s seen her now, like this?

Elsa is looking at him like she’d already forgotten that he was there.

(It’s okay. He guesses he should be used to it.)

“It’s alright,” she gently replies, trailing a tired hand over her brow. Jack’s stomach clenches, inexplicably, as he shuffles his feet. “Anna can be very… persuasive.”

Uh.  _Yeah._

“Um. Do you want—? Would you like—the tea, I mean?”

Elsa seems to consider it for a moment, before shaking her head. “No, I can handle it myself, thank you,” she answers evenly, which would have been very convincing. Had she not been swaying whilst she said it. “I think it’s best if you leave now, actually… male presence,” she waves a hand through the air, as if that explains everything, and—unfortunately for Jack’s blushing face—it does. “In the… Queen’s chambers,” she adds, and Jack may actually die, right here. “Unchaperoned…”

She falls off the bed.

“Holy—“

Or she almost does, but is more graceful than she looks, and apparently it takes a little more than a mere cold to completely throw off her refined equilibrium, but it really,  _really_  would have been nice to remember all of that before he jumped to her rescue, because now Jack is kneeling at her bedside, holding her by the arms, steadying a Queen who does not need to be steadied, and she is looking down at him, in shock.

At least. That’s what he thinks it is. Her eyes are very wide.

“I,” says Jack.

Her hands are very cold where they grip tight to his arms, just beneath his shoulders. Her arms are very thin, and it may just be because she’s sick and because he thinks he sort of loves her in the way foolish men do, but beneath his touch the Ice Queen feels soft and fragile and still not-quite-mended, and maybe it’s just his mind playing tricks on him, but when she looks at him, Jack thinks it’s actually him that she sees.

He could die, he thinks, for a look like that.

“Your Majesty,” he says, very evenly, when enough time has passed that Jack has nearly forgotten his own name. The Queen blinks, as if coming out of a daze, and—isn’t that just like him, he thinks, to make a mess and a big production out of something as simple as allowing a sick woman her bed rest—and slowly, her hands fall away, fingers dripping down his sleeves.

“Yes,” she turns away, breathless, and stares blankly into the expanse of wrinkled blankets. “Thank you,” she says crisply, with that regal command that sounds so much more like herself, then gently clears her throat. It must hurt, he realizes. She’s probably hiding a lot her illness, he realizes, because  _he’s still there_ , and she doesn’t want an  _audience_ , and Jack’s gut churns hot with embarrassment. (He can only imagine  _hers_.) He inhales a steadying breath as deeply and as quietly as he can, without drawing her attention, then slowly rises to leave. He’s already had too much of her time today, and the best he can hope for is that she’ll have forgotten about all of this in the morning.

He ignores the sharp stab that slices through his stomach at the thought, and resolves to actually do his job.

For once.

Jack’s not sure what to say, so he bows very deeply instead, then quickly turns on his heel, and all but flees toward the door. (He briefly considers, for a moment, turning back once more to look toward the bed before he leaves— _but for what purpose?_  he thinks, and that’s the end of that.) The hallway is blissfully, fortuitously empty when he slips out into the darkness, but Jack can only muster the slightest gratitude.

He retires to bed without further incident, without a word to any other person, and hardly a wink of sleep.

* * *

The following morning, he does not expect to see Anna, Princess of Arendelle, greeting him with a smile.

“You’re needed upstairs, my good Jack,” says she.

It is early. Jack cannot be held accountable for the things he says to royalty before the sun has fully risen.

“But I work down here,” he protests, utterly perplexed.

And that’s it, this is when he should have known, right here. Anna’s eyes almost seem to sparkle, if such a thing is possible, and Jack has a feeling in his gut that he can’t actually describe—??

“Not anymore,” she answers ambiguously, and smiles.

 


End file.
